Gigabyte's GTX 260 Super Overclock: A GTX 275 on the Cheap?
by Ryan Smith on October 11, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The GTX 260 Super Overclock
In order to run a card so far out of NVIDIA’s specs, you have to build a card that equally exceeds those specifications. It’s not enough to just bin chips to find the best performers, your memory and PCB need to be capable of supporting such a chip. So while the GTX260 Super Overclock’s main claim to fame is its high clock speeds, it also has to be built as a better card than what you can get away with at stock.
To accomplish this, Gigabyte has given the card the UltraDurable treatment that many of their other high-end products get. This includes a 2oz. copper based PCB, solid capacitors, low RDS(on) MOSFETs, and ferrite core chokes. Added to that UltraDurable qualifier is that they only use “1st tier” Samsung and Hynix memory, although this is a bit of a redundant claim since those two companies provide most high-speed GDDR3 these days anyhow.
The card is otherwise indistinguishable on the outside from any other stock GTX 200 series card. Gigabyte is using the same GTX cooler, adorned with Gigabyte decals. Gigabyte has gone ahead and programmed in a different cooling profile for this card as compared to the stock GTX 260, and this along with the greater heat generated by the overclocked card means that the cooling performance will differ in spite of being the usual GTX cooler.
Gigabyte has used an interesting choice for the port layout on the GTX260 Super Overclock. Instead of the standard 2x DVI + TV-Out configuration, they’re using 1x DVI + VGA + HDMI out. We find this somewhat odd since the GTX 260 Super Overclock is not a card targeted for HTPC use, so the HDMI port would see little use unless someone is using an HDMI-only TV as a desktop monitor. But on the flip side, this means that a special audio-carrying DVI->HDMI dongle isn’t required to get full HDMI out.
With the different port layout comes different dongles. 1 DVI->VGA dongle is included, along with an HDMI->DVI dongle for a second DVI port. Also included is a pair of Molex->PCIe power adapters, and a S/PDIF connector cable.
Rounding out the collection of included goodies is the obligatory manual and driver CD. Gigabyte also includes their VGA Tools Gamer Hud Lite. You won’t see this advertised on the box, which really says all that needs to be said. The NVIDIA drivers do a better job covering things here.
The warranty is listed at 3 years, which along with lifetime limited are the two most common warranty periods for higher-end video cards. Truth be told, we would have rather seen a lifetime warranty on an overclocked video card, particularly since the core speeds for this card are beyond anything the GT200b was designed and validated for. Furthermore Gigabyte’s competitors such as eVGA and BFG offer lifetime warranties on their overclocked parts, leaving Gigabyte the odd man out. 3 years is still a fair warranty, and we believe that realistically it should be good enough, but it’s just that.
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Jamahl - Sunday, October 11, 2009 - link
It must be difficult to review fairly right now but this was a nice review.I do feel that the overall recommendation should be towards the 5850 more strongly. Yes it is priced a little higher, yes it is "only" 25% faster and 30% more costly, but the additional features double that 25% faster and we all know this.
I suspect the 5850 is going to increase the gap as time goes on, and I believe most of us will agree with that too.
A more forceful point on the pricing of this card (the 260 being reviewed) would have been another alternative. Overall it was a decent and interesting review.
DC 10 - Saturday, December 26, 2009 - link
This Review was a long time in the coming!!!Yet this review seems to almost seems to have a chip on it's shoulder - when it is clearly seen to be just as good card as a GTX275-280 - I got the impression that it was regrettable that this card was too good - kinda silly to me
I have the MSI GTX260 OCv3 and It's OC'd to 690 on the core / 1436 shader / and 1200 mem clock- It pretty much comes close to a GTX280 -
Anything in the GTX275-280 range this card or MY MSI Card which is the same as this card, but with Better Cooling (not factory cooling) should be considered easily.
FYI - MSI did a great job by going with a Non traditional cooling setup for their OCV3 cards - especially SLI or Tri-SLI - This card reviewed and my MSI card simply reveal what is at stake here - Pricing and Marketing...
The review showed what most of us already knew who own these cards - That NVidia could slash prices the way AMD has done - instead of being uppidy knuckle-heads...
It's good to see Anandtech - review something like this - could not deny what these cards cand do price/performance wise - hard to ignore...
yacoub - Sunday, October 11, 2009 - link
I dunno, the 5770 is shaping up nicely for a $160 card:http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33953...">http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33953...
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1458978">http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1458978
http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/15876/1/">http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/15876/1/
palladium - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
Hmm... wonder how SiliconDoc would reply to this.The0ne - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
Why would you even care? O.oteohhanhui - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
He's got an appointment with the psychiatrist.sparkuss - Sunday, October 11, 2009 - link
Is there something I should read into this difference in the charts?I'm probably going to update to 5850/5870 before a full box upgrade and I'm following all the reviews I can find.
Ryan Smith - Sunday, October 11, 2009 - link
The 5850 data has been added. We pruned some old data to keep the charts smaller, and I pruned a little too much there.As for the 5870; Anand and I have matching rigs, but it's not possible to replicate thermal/noise characteristics. He did the noise/thermal testing for the 5800 series articles, while I did this one. As a result new data based on the cards I have was collected, and at the moment I don't have a 5870.
sparkuss - Sunday, October 11, 2009 - link
Thanks,Just wanted to be sure I didn't miss something in the text.